Game Over, Press 'Start'
by magickal1
Summary: Directly after 'The Real Paul Anka.' When you lose, you can always come back in a different way and win. Maybe it's time for Rory to admit defeat and try again. Lit. Oneshot.


**Disclaimer: **You know the drill. It's not mine.

**Game Over. ****Press 'Start.'**

He watches her as she runs, out the door of his quaint little bookshop. He almost laughs—_quaint little bookshop_—but finds that he can't. There is a growing lump in his throat. It had been there since he met her, and had been getting larger and larger. He lets out something that sounds like someone choking, and turns around sharply, marching up the stairs.

He knows she probably doesn't want to be watched. And he thinks that if he saw her again, he would chase her. He is desperate to hold her again, touch her again, whisper sweet nothings into her ear—not that he ever did that. But he wishes he did before it was too late.

He doubts he'll ever be happy without her. He also doubts he'll ever be with her.

_Wave bye-bye, to Mr. Happiness, Jessie-poo._

* * *

She runs out to her car as soon as she clears the doorway, hoping and praying that Jess isn't watching. She drives a couple miles, and stops in front of a small park. 

Gathering her knees up to her chest, she stares out the window. She shivers, and blasts the heat.

She thinks about what a bitch she is. She is horrible to Logan for cheating on her, even though he wasn't even technically cheating.

"And then I come to Philadelphia, get Jess' hopes up—it's unbelievable that anyone would even want me—and kiss him! Kiss him!" she mutters to herself. "I'm such a hypocrite. A jerky, cheating hypocrite."

Clouds are beginning to form in the sky; a moment later, it is pouring rain. She lowers her window, for no reason, and gets soaked. Maybe it's because she's crazy. Maybe it's because she's embarrassed to be seen crying—she has no excuse to cry. She's the one who made the problem in the first place.

She always seems to do that. She made things horrible between countless people: Luke and Lorelai after the car accident, Dean and Jess because Dean is Dean and Jess is Jess, Dean and Lindsay—the worst of them all, because she slept with Dean. She lost "her precious flower," as Emily and Richard's pastor would call it, to him, and while he was married.

That was just fabulous. _Aren't you supposed to do it the first time with someone you love? _she wonders. She never did love Dean; he said he loved her, and she just believed that she automatically loved him back.

And then it hits her, hard, just as the rain is starting to pick up and her car's interior is getting soaked: she had sex with Dean because she missed _him_.

She is amazed she never saw it before. With all her pro/con lists, all her overly analytical thinking, she couldn't even sort out her own life.

And, just to make things worse, she had gotten together with Logan because he wanted her, and she was lonely, so she decided to go along with it. And she did love Logan, she decided, just in a different way than….

She can't get past the stage of denial, even in her own head. She jumps out of the car and begins to run. The rain is coming down in buckets now; the raindrops course down her face and mingle with her tears. She wouldn't have been able to tell she was crying if she hadn't tasted the saltiness on her lips.

She suddenly finds herself in a small sheltered alcove, by a statue that is undefined in the haze caused by the rain. Water is dripping down her back and along her legs. She squeezes her hair at least partially dry, and sinks down into the puddle she had just made, flipping open her cell phone. Speed dial can be handy, as her fingers are shaking too much to dial Logan's number.

Of course, she knows he is going to be out of range, due to his outrageous stunt with the Life and Death Brigade, but she has to try. It rings once, and then a long beep. "Logan! Logan!" she half-yells into the phone, even though she knows there is no one on the other line. "Dammit, why won't you answer me—why did you put yourself in a position where you _can't_ answer me!"

She snaps the phone shut and bashes it against the floor. She feels morbid satisfaction when she hears it splinter and crack in her now bruised hand. A small fizzing sound starts as the delicate electric make-up comes in contact with the water. She leans her head back and closes her eyes, and springs back up again.

It is impossible for her to stay still. She has so much energy—not necessarily positive energy, not positive at all, just pent up energy. She sprints back to her car as the rain starts to let up, and a child sitting on his mother's lap takes his fingers out of his mouth just long enough to point at her when she passes. She doesn't see this, and even if she had she wouldn't have stopped.

* * *

She had taken the six o' clock train from Philly to Hartford. She left her car; it was in one of the few free parking spots in town, and she knew she was going back soon anyway. She tries to call Logan again, but it doesn't work—not that she believed it would. 

The sky is as dark and ominous-looking here in Stars Hollow as it was in Philadelphia. She feels it reflects her mood perfectly.

She stares out the window of her old bedroom, in her mother's house. Jess' and her relationship had always been doomed—he had always been too random, going and doing where he pleased, calling and talking when it suited him. She is more organized, more optimistic and goal-oriented. They boosted each others weaknesses, and shared some of the same strengths, but someone _really _didn't want them to be happy.

She sighs; it is all she seems to be able to do lately. Sigh and moan and be unhappy.

Her new phone rings—the old one had proved to be far beyond repair—and she scrambles for it, and it is slipping through her fingers. 'Out of Area,' the caller ID says. She opens it and holds it up to her ear, hoping and praying it is one of the two people she most wants to talk to.

"Rory?" The caller speaks first. She recognizes the voice; she could anywhere.

"Logan!" She sounds excited, and not misleadingly. Only, she is excited for a different reason than she would have been the summer before. She is excited now because she has a fresh chance to break up with him, and it makes her feel sick. _I promised I was going to fix things_, she tells herself, but she can't help but feel disgusted at the thing she is becoming.

"Hey, Ace. How are you?"

"Great!" she says, falsely cheery now. "But I shouldn't be talking, how are _you_? Did the parachuting go nicely?"

"It was awesome," he says, and she can tell he isn't lying. He has the same happy tone of voice he always has when talking about his secret group, "but it was tainted."

"Why?" she asks, and is really curious now.

"'Cause I missed you," he says, and there is a note of longing in his voice. She shudders. "Ace?" he asks. "You still there?"

"Yeah, I'm here Logan," she answers. She is starting to feel uncomfortable. "Listen, I have to go. I have…_things_ to do. 'Kay?" She decided to add, for good measure: "And I want to hear about everything about your trip, in detail, when I see you."

"Alright," he agrees. "And when is it I'm gonna see you?"

"In a couple days," she says surely, "maybe less."

"See you, Ace. I love you," he says.

She winces. "'Bye," she says hurriedly, and hangs up the phone. She stares at the tiny technological wonder for a long time. She doesn't know why she can't say it back. Because she _does _love him, she already decided that.

Doesn't she?

_No_, she thinks, and she feels like crying. Her heart is breaking slowly, and she knows how to put it back together again, but doesn't believe it will ever happen.

She is going to break up with Logan. She has to. Now. She is sick of leading people on. She did it with Dean, and she isn't going to do it to Logan anymore. He was always her friend, and later her lover, and she doesn't want to hurt him anymore than she already is going to.

She calls again, and after she hangs up, she lets herself cry again.

Because that's all she does anymore, isn't it? Eat, sleep, break, hurt, cry, wallow, sigh, pretend, bleed, burn, kill, bury, die. That's all she's able to do. Break people's hearts, while her own slowly disintegrates, fading away until it's nothing but a memory.

Life's just a game, after all. And when it's game over, you can always start over, even go so far as to believe nothing's ever happened.

Wrong answer.

* * *

Logan paces around the house anxiously. She had called back, and had sounded flustered. She said that she had had a last minute change of plans, and could come to see him right away. 

He couldn't help but worry that this was bad news. Ever since he'd slept with those girls, nameless, faceless girls, who meant nothing to him in his drunken stupor of loneliness, she'd seemed disconnected, in a different world.

The doorbell rings. Now he knows something's wrong. She'd never rung the doorbell, had always just let herself in.

He takes a couple deep breaths, and opens the door, hoping he can kiss her and be kissed back one last time. Maybe more than that.

* * *

She waits nervously on the doorstep, _this _close to biting her fingernails, even though she'd just broken that habit. The door swings open. 

"Hey, Ace," he says with a half-hearted smile. He leans down to kiss her, and she lets him, but doesn't kiss him back. She doesn't think that she should make him hopeful just before he's going to rip out his heart, shred it to little pieces, and throw it back at his face.

That would be cruel. No crueler than the whole ripping out the heart thing—that sounds like it hurts—but still pretty low.

* * *

"Logan, I—" 

He cuts her off. He somehow knows what she's going to say before she says it. "It's that Jess guy, isn't it?" She nods wordlessly.

"How'd you—"

"How did I know? I just _know_, okay?" he bites out, and he sees her shrink back. He immediately regrets his harsh words, even though he knows he shouldn't. "Go to him. If it makes you happy…"

"Logan, I'm sorry. It's just…." She bites her lip so hard the skin splits and blood begins trickling down her chin. She pulls a tissue out of purse and holds it up to her face.

"You don't have to explain yourself to me Rory. I'm just glad you didn't wait until I proposed, because then I'd feel pretty stupid, wouldn't I?" He is trying to joke, to make her laugh, or at least brighten up with a smile, but he obviously isn't that funny. Her eyes just widen in her face.

"W-what?"

"Not that I was really going to propose to you," he says hastily, trying to correct his mistake—even though he had been planning to. She looks hurt, and adapts a blank look. He mentally smacks himself for being so insensitive.

Suddenly, he resentfully thinks he can be as insensitive as he wants. She's the one that's breaking up with him, not the other way around….

"Just go to him," he repeats. He begins to close the door, and she starts to turn around, and suddenly spins back to face him.

"Do you—" She pauses, as if deciding whether or not whatever it is she's about to say would be a good idea. "Do you think we could—could possibly be just friends?"

He laughs bitterly. It sounds horrible. "I don't think I would be able to keep myself from touching you. And I don't think your precious Jess would like that very much. We don't want to make a scene, do we?" He laughs again, and slams the door in her face.

* * *

She stops just before entering the store, suddenly having second-thoughts. 

_A little late to be doubting yourself_, she chides herself, and opens the door. The little jingle of bells sort of wakes her up.

He's standing with his back to her, talking to a customer. She sits on the nearest chair, waiting quietly.

* * *

After he rings the woman up, he finally sees her. 

She's sitting there like an angel, and to him, she is. But he can't be sure that she's not an illusion, or that she just came back to take another piece of him with her.

"Hey," she says softly, almost a whisper.

"Did you—" he starts to ask, but she cuts him off.

"I fixed things. Everything." She looks right at him, and stands up. "For real this time."

He walks up to her. They're barely an inch apart. He can smell her breath—cappuccino, the last thing she drank, of course—and he's sure she can smell his. He opens his mouth to speak again, but she holds her finger to his lips.

"Shh," she says. "Don't say a word."

He doesn't.

She leans in, and kisses him, softly at first, tentatively. Testing ground that hasn't been trodden for far too long. But before long they're attacking each other, making up for lost years. He gathers her up into his arms as she runs her hands through his hair and he yanks upwards on her shirt, and slowly backs up the stairs, into his apartment, knowing the guys are running a few errands downstairs and could take care of any customers.

He sets her on the bed, and they continue to explore each other. He opens his mouth and she greedily accepts the open invitation, caressing the hollows and ridges of the inside of his mouth.

At one point, he leans back and asks her if they're taking this too fast, if they shouldn't give it some time, so they can readjust.

She says, "Shut the hell up and kiss me some more."

And so he does.

* * *

**Reviews are appreciated.**


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